From The CEO: Alex Bratton, Lextech Global Services

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Alex Bratton, 40, launched Lextech Global Services, a Lisle-based company that provides everything from software to phone applications that have received local and national awards for excellence. | Submitted

Updated: December 14, 2011 8:18AM

A decade ago, Lisle’s Alex Bratton wanted to launch a company that would make a difference in the business world and address customers’ needs — a tall order.

Not for Bratton.

The result was Lextech Global Services, a Lisle-based company that provides software to phone applications. Some of their products already have received local and national awards for excellence.

“There were plenty of developers in our market creating games, and more than enough companies making software customers asked for, but didn’t really need, because they wanted to make a quick buck,” 40-year-old Bratton said. “I wanted to play a more meaningful role in our customers’ businesses.”

‘Serial entrepreneur’

The self-deprecating businessman calls himself, “half geek — half entrepreneur” and quickly comes across as a kindred spirit of the late Steve Jobs.

“I am reading his book, and I’m definitely a ‘Mac’ guy,” Bratton said. “I consider myself a serial entrepreneur as I’ve started 10 companies in my life.”

He says he started his first at 14 years old while attending Addison Trail High School, which was his first client.

“I developed software that was used for data collection in their PE department,” he said.

Bratton later earned a bachelor of science degree in computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is married to Michelle, and the couple has one son, Ethan. They live in Woodridge.

‘Clear vision’

Like the commercials hawking applications for the iPhone, Bratton believes that for virtually any business application, “there should be a business for that.” Based on customer needs and his own personal think tank, Bratton continues to develop applications that few in his field have even considered.

“We have created software in our sister company Lextech Labs that allows surveillance video used by police to be downloaded to a mobile device,” he said. “We also have an app that is sort of an interactive sales brochure — it allows users to keep track of inventory as well as display video of the products. We work with weapon systems, and even have remote control for industrial equipment that lets farmers work with their grain silos.”

Will Scott, 49, who works as the managing director for Lextech, calls Bratton “a great leader and a visionary.”

“Alex has both the technical competence as well as the experience, and he understands the market,” Scott said. “In terms of his work as a CEO, a company needs a clear vision for the future, and Alex has that. He leads by example, but he also leaves us and lets us do what we have to do without getting in the way.”

Paving the way

Bratton said another goal of his is to create “a technical entrepreneurial culture here in Illinois” that would rival the one that has been established for years in Silicon Valley. He speaks to groups frequently throughout the state to encourage them to become entrepreneurs.

“On the mobile side of things, we have a great opportunity here in the Midwest,” Bratton said. “A lot of people out there in California have invented various technologies but haven’t figured out what to do with them yet. That’s where I think people here have a great opportunity. We have to apply what we have with the ‘pain points’ that exist today and address those with technology.”

And then he has another big idea for a business.

“This whole mobile application thing is bigger than the Internet and in terms of applications that will be needed.”

Maybe “there should be a business for that.”

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